The Bloody Wood (4 page)

‘I had heard she was here.’

‘You find her attractive?’

‘Oh, decidedly. In other circumstances, I can imagine myself hunting her like mad. Of course, nothing much would come of it, even when everything had. But that might be the essence of fun. Or that’s my guess. But I’m totally ignorant, of course. The
mundus muliebris
isn’t my affair. Still, I’m keeping an eye on Martine.’

Appleby, beset by the peculiar discomfort that attends the reception of callow talk, said nothing. At least it would be an error to suppose that this accomplished young man didn’t know his way around in the sphere just touched upon. There was no harm in that. Nevertheless he felt that, for the moment, he and Bobby Angrave had enjoyed enough of each other’s company.

‘I’ll take one more turn along the terrace,’ he said, ‘and then follow you in. It will let me finish this cigar. I’ve always suspected that your aunt doesn’t love the things.’

‘Aunt Grace is a fastidious woman.’ Bobby nodded, prepared to turn away. ‘It must make it all additionally formidable for her – wouldn’t you say? I believe that dying doesn’t merely have those terrors and agonies. It has its bad smells as well. Enjoy your cigar.’

And Bobby walked off towards the house. The moonlight thrust a pale shadow before him on the gravel. Appleby stood still for a moment, and watched him go. He was far from convinced that Bobby had scored any sort of alpha during this curious half-hour.

It had been to find Bobby Angrave, Appleby recalled, that he had separated himself from the party in the loggia and strolled out into the grounds. Or rather he had made that an excuse for wandering away. And it suddenly came to him now, with an odd effect of belated discovery, that he had really been prompted to seek solitude by something quite different. Something – and he had wanted to find out what – had been twitching at his mind.

It was long professional habit that made him attentive to these obscure intimations of subliminal uneasiness. The detection of crime is a scientific process; he had watched it becoming progressively more so throughout his own professional career. But, like mathematics or modern physics, it is surprisingly dependent on intuitive factors, all the same. There are times at which the solution of a mystery can simply start up in the mind like a creation. Or it may lurk in the obscurer regions of the psyche and teasingly refuse to appear – or it may do no more than flash a fin, so to speak, above the surface of consciousness. It was second nature to Appleby to be sensitive to these tiny signals – so much so that he could not do other than attend to them when they came, even when it was in a context quite aside from his official life. Nowadays his crime-solving days were really over; he had to sit back and watch others at the job. But he still treated with unfailing respect these faint, momentary intimations that in this or that insignificant appearance lay something that ought to be attended to, that ought to be coaxed into revealing itself. The sense that there had been
something
, but that only deep down in his head did he know
what
, was still the keenest challenge that he knew. And he would attend to it in or out of season: it might be while reading a memorandum at his desk; it might be while taking tea with one of Judith’s aunts. This was what had really brought him out of the loggia this evening. Here he was at Charne, miles away from any possibility of crime. But there had been
something
. Something that somebody had said had given that small familiar twitch to his mind, and he had left the party in the loggia – this itself by an almost unconscious process – in order to give it an opportunity less uncertainly to declare itself.

Well, it hadn’t worked – perhaps because of the sudden manner in which Bobby Angrave had appeared on the scene. This was of no more importance than a failure to solve a chess problem or to find a clue in a crossword puzzle. Still, he didn’t like being baffled. So now he gave his mind one last chance. Instead of simply walking down the terrace and back, he walked right round the house.

The door most frequently used for familiar comings and goings at Charne was in the west front. It lay in shadow at the moment, as did a diagonal slice of the broad paved yard separating it from a sprawl of stables and offices in part concealed behind a high stone wall. But as Appleby approached a light went on, the door opened, and Friary could be seen and heard bidding goodnight to a briskly moving man who carried a small bag. This was Dr Fell. He almost collided with Appleby as he made for his car, and then started back in an agitation that seemed to suggest either a sick or a very tired man. The two men exchanged greetings – perhaps with a slight awkwardness, since Appleby felt that he should scarcely inquire as to how the doctor had found his patient.

‘It’s wonderful how Friary gets back on the job,’ he said, by way of finding some casual remark.

‘Back on the job?’ Dr Fell had a brusque manner. ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘Oh, merely that he takes a little constitutional to the village every evening.’

‘Does he, indeed? It might be better if he didn’t.’

‘You confirm my worst suspicions. At least, I suppose you do. Is Friary the local Lothario?’

‘I wouldn’t give it so romantic a name.’ Fell opened the door of his car, and shoved in his case. ‘Where did Martineau get hold of him, I wonder? It’s usually a groom or an under-gardener – or a footman, where they still happen – who makes a nuisance of himself when he has a strategic base in a house like this. At least you’d suppose the wretched girls might be safe from a butler.’

‘I see. Well, Friary might be described, I suppose, as a well-preserved butler. As to where Martineau picked him up, I haven’t a notion. He may have a past, no doubt. But then we all do.’

‘Just what do you mean by that?’

Appleby was startled. The words had come, sharp and uncontrolled, from the obscurity of the car into which Dr Fell had now climbed.

‘I mean no more than I say,’ he said. ‘That’s my habit.’

‘Sorry.’ Fell’s voice was at once confused and apologetic. ‘I’ve had a damnable day – and you can guess I’m not happy about Mrs Martineau. And now I must be off. Another couple of calls, as a matter of fact.’

‘I wouldn’t like your job – although I wish I did as useful a one.’ Appleby stood back, waiting for Fell to slam his door. ‘Certainly not in winter. It’s something you have to grow up to, I think.’

‘Well, I didn’t. As you know. Good night.’

At this the door did shut; the engine of the car came to life with an unimpressive rattle; Dr Fell flicked on his lights, and drove off rapidly down the drive.

One can put a foot in it, Appleby thought. One can put
both
feet in it. But to put
each
foot in it successively is something of an achievement. And with Dr Fell he seemed to have managed just that. To be so touchy, the man must have had some nasty check to his career, and a country doctor’s job must irk him, even although he was good at it. Appleby turned back, and made his way round to the terrace. Perhaps Fell had thought he was hinting some knowledge of him, and proposing to winkle out more. People did sometimes take it for granted that his profession must render him ceaselessly inquisitive about other folks’ affairs. It was a misconception. And certainly he hadn’t the slightest wish to learn more about Dr Fell.

I do not love you Dr Fell
… Nor hate you, nor care twopence for you either way. Appleby had come to this conclusion on the matter – which showed that he was not very pleased with himself – when he rounded the corner of the house. Lights were still burning in the music room, but in addition to this somebody appeared to have returned to the loggia, for there was a light there also. Appleby strolled over to it, vaguely supposing it might be his wife. Judith too – although so inveterately sociable – was fond of occasional solitude.

It wasn’t Judith; it was Diana Page. For a moment he thought she was asleep, for she was sitting hunched across a small table, with her head buried in her arms. Then he saw her shoulders heave, and heard the sound of convulsive sobbing. For some reason or other – and, like Dr Gregory Fell’s past, it was no business of his – Diana was having a good, a very good, cry. Appleby backed hastily, proposing to steal away. Only this time, unfortunately, he put his foot in it quite literally. Mrs Martineau’s gardening basket was on the ground by the loggia door. It contained, among other things, a small watering can. He stepped into the one, and overturned the other.

Diana jerked herself upright. She stared at Appleby, and Appleby stared at her. To step forward with some word, or some mere gesture of comfort might have seemed natural enough. But there are tears and tears – and Diana’s, at the moment, somehow didn’t prompt to consolation. She was, as Appleby had told himself earlier, little more than a child. It was a child’s face that looked at him now. At the same time it was a face vividly sensuous – and with a sensuousness that had somehow been outraged or baffled. Angry mortification was what Appleby saw as he looked. It could be read as plainly as a book.

‘Go away! You beastly, beastly spy, go
away
!’ This came from Diana as a mere cry; she reiterated the words again and again; like a small girl in a tantrum, she waved her fists in front of her face.

It seemed undeniable to Appleby that he was having a bad evening. First Dr Fell had put on a turn for him, and then – much more violently – this spoilt and sulky child. The judicious response to Diana, he supposed, would be stern words, briskly spoken. Or perhaps she ought to be slapped. Again, her hysteria might be controlled by means of the contents of the watering can. But on the whole it would probably be best to do exactly what she asked, and go away. Diana was in real misery, no doubt, but he was pretty sure its occasion didn’t lie in any quarter where he could be helpful.

Having come to this conclusion, Appleby turned to leave the loggia. He found himself confronted by Friary.

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I supposed there was nobody here, and came to turn off the light.’ As he said this, Friary was clearly enough taking in the scene before him. His expression might have been described as impassive – except, indeed, that this would have been to convey a wrong idea of him. It is the word conventionally applied to the features of upper servants when confronted with an untoward situation. But although Friary was undeniably an upper servant there was something about him – Appleby reflected, not for the first time – that didn’t quite cohere with the character. It wasn’t entirely a matter of his age. It wasn’t even his physique – although that suggested itself as an athlete’s – or anything definably out of the way in his manner. Perhaps it was something that ought to have been quite insignificant: how he held his hands, or the way be brushed his hair.

But what chiefly struck Appleby now was something quite different; it was consciousness of the turn of speed Friary had put on between closing that distant door upon Dr Fell and presenting himself here in the loggia. He must have had the shocking circumstance of a needlessly burning light very much on his mind. For a moment Appleby even had the strange thought that the man had been hastening to keep an assignation with Diana Page. If it were so, it wouldn’t be quite right, this time, to tell himself that the matter was no business of his. Fortunately – or unfortunately – the idea was probably just another instance of his deplorable professional instinct to uncover intrigue. He simply wasn’t fit – he sometimes told himself – to frequent normal society.

Meanwhile, Friary was still watching Diana – and doing so very much at his ease. Appleby saw no occasion for this.

‘Thank you,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll see to the lights.’

‘Thank
you
, sir.’ Friary gave the ghost of a bow, and walked from the loggia. His manner of doing so wasn’t remotely offensive. But even in this action there was something that left one wondering, all the same.

The interruption had at least served to pull Diana Page together. She had blown her nose; she was now dabbing at herself out of some small cosmetic contrivance.

‘I was being silly,’ she said. ‘It’s Mrs Martineau. I can’t bear it.’

‘Have you and Martine been staying at Charne long?’ Appleby asked. He had better, he thought, say something that didn’t contravert Diana’s explanation of her conduct, although it wasn’t an explanation he believed.

‘A fortnight – nearly three weeks. It seems much longer.’

‘You mean it’s rather dull?’

‘Yes – no. I don’t know. Martine and I ride together. And play golf. Tennis, when we can persuade Bobby and somebody else to join in.’

‘Is Bobby good?’

‘Of course not. Bobby’s a bit of a rabbit. But he’s better than nobody.’

As Diana said this, her glance strayed to the door through which Friary had just departed, with the result that Appleby had once more to clamp down on facile conjecture.

‘Isn’t there much in the way of a neighbourhood, as they used to say? Young people for tennis, and so forth, not too far off?’

‘There must be lots of people in the town, but the Martineaus don’t seem to have much to do with them. At Weston Place – that’s the nearest house like this – there’s only a crowd of frumpy girls.’ Diana said this with a considerable effect of grievance. ‘At Feathers there’s just the one daughter, Simona, who’s frightfully stylish and deb, and does her best to monopolize any young men there are. Ronny Clandon at Proby used to be a resource. I liked Ronny. But, of course, he was binned.’

‘Binned? You mean the poor young man went mad?’

‘Oh no. Ronny just took an awful lot of drugs, and his parents got in a panic. They’re terribly square.’ Diana looked at Appleby appraisingly. ‘That means something like old-fashioned,’ she added.

‘Yes – I think I’ve heard the term.’

‘The funny thing about drugs is that they seem to be catching.’

‘Well, yes. I’ve heard that too.’

‘The same thing happened to Tim Gorham.’

‘And did they bin him?’

‘Oh, much worse. Tim was sent to Australia.’